Comparison of the best and worst in class content B2B marketers – 2015 data

Since social media requires integration with the rest of your marketing, your organization and your technology, a documented strategy is even more important.

Document and distribute your social media mission. Determine what you want your business to accomplish on social media. It his has to be bigger than making money. Don’t leave room for employees to interpret your mission.

Develop a social media strategy. Coordinate your social media efforts with your overall marketing and business strategies. Think goals, audience and results.

Get senior executive buy-in. There’s no better way to get employees involved than to have support from the top levels. Given the nature of social media, this support has an impact on your customers, influencers, and beyond.

Look at what your competitors are doing. Don’t limit yourself to just direct competitors. Consider the big players as well. Use your personal accounts to see how these brands communicate and interact with their community. Engage with their brands as individuals.

2016 Social Media Marketing Plan Step 2:

Develop a social media plan

In 2016, social media is more than media platforms to distribute and promote your marketing messages.

Your social media plan needs these 4 elements:

Major social media efforts. Key social media focused activities to arouse interest on 1 or more platforms. (Of course, they should be coordinated with your other marketing plans.)

Regular social media engagement. Have 1 or more people responsible for representing and interacting on social media. Consider scheduling office hours on various platforms. Include social media monitoring and PR for issues that may arise. Also have sales and customer service support.

Integrate social media activity into your other marketing plans where appropriate. Extend your budget by cross-promoting your activities across your organization. Include a social media component into other programs where relevant such as live events like conferences.

Walk in your audience’s shoes. Focus on topics and information important to your audience. Don’t chase social media traffic. Your content needs to talk to your audience and their needs.

Provide your audience with the information they want and need – Heidi Cohen

Empower employees to participate as your representatives on social media using their personal accounts. This requires marketing support and training. You can’t assume your employees will know what to do. Nor can you force them to participate. You get more exposure and your employees will look like great people.

2016 Social Media Marketing Plan Step 3:

Laser focus on each platform’s unique qualities to maximize results

Social media isn’t one size fits all!

Each platform has different nuances and audiences. Understanding this is key to building your following on each separate platform. If you don’t, your message will be like white noise that people filter out.

Data shows that most social media interaction occurs via mobile and in apps. Your message needs to get your audience’s attention. Being targeted and relevant helps achieve this goal.

At a minimum, be active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and YouTube. Also keep up with each network’s changes.

Use social media advertising to target your prime audience(s) and tap into the each network’s social media data. Skip broadcast promotions.

Strategically place and test every element of your ad spend including:

Audience attributes

Ad text and headlines

Content format (text, image, video)

Timing (day and dayparting)

Location (mobile versus desktop)

Offers

Ad longevity

Tailor social media advertising by platform. Track results to see what works and what doesn’t. Invest in the ads that work. Manage your budget across networks checking for similarities and differences.

Expect shorter ad life. Since social media can yield more impressions in shorter time frames, this may require more ads by network.

Create social media ads at the same time as your related content and major advertising campaigns to minimize costs. Don’t just use the same ad across platforms. The more contextually relevant the better the ad will perform.

2016 Social Media Marketing Plan Step 7:

Use the power of influencers

Influencer marketing allows you to tap into the power of other people’s audiences. It’s a cost effective social media form of PR. Top Rank’s Lee Odden was an early proponent of the use of influencers.

The best influencer marketing is a win-win-win for the influencer, the customer and you. It can’t be an obvious, thinly veiled sell.

To work, the influencer needs a logical relationship with the brand and the audience.

Estimates show that influencer marketing is cost effective. It can be done based on relationships or involve investment. It yields $6 for each $1 spent on influencer marketing.

2 examples of how to use social media influencers

Marriott’s tapped Jack Harries (who has 4.1 million YouTube followers) to create targeted videos that work for their brand and his audience. (Hat tip to Ardath Albee.)

Nurture relationships in your niche. Build relationships by following and engaging with influencers on social media and in real life. As Mark Schaefer advised, you should be able to get the influencer to respond to your email or phone call.

2016 Social Media Marketing Plan Step 8:

Improve your post-social media interaction

To show quantifiable social media results you need to lure prospects to sign up for your email list or purchase from your business.

Alternatively you can close the deal on social media. There’s been a lot of social shopping “Buy button” testing. Pinterest enables businesses to update prices on pins seamlessly.

Every person who kicks your social media tires won’t translate to a sale. That’s true of most business, but that’s even more important now when buyers can compare prices before they hit purchase.

Give your social media community a reason to share their email address with you. You want a way to keep interacting with them them. You need a piece of content or a discount to motivate potential audience. Then tailor your email communications based on their initial social media interaction.

Provide quality information that helps them to visualize buying your product. While this can be similar to your welcome series, target it to your social media.

Target your social media landing pages where appropriate. Maintain related product redirect pages for social content with a longer lifespan like Pinterest and YouTube.

2016 Social Media Marketing Plan Step 9:

Determine the right tool for each aspect of social media

Streamline your social media activity with social media tools to maximize employee effectiveness.

Expect social media tools to expand and evolve as well as disappear. As their product life cycle matures, there will be a shake out.

My colleague Ian Cleary of RazorSocial has built his reputation as the “Tools Guy.”

Why You Need Social Media Tools

The general activities you’ll need social media tools to do are:

Monitor social media conversation.

Distribute your content.

Maximize your audience.

Interact with influencers and customers.

Measure results.

Integrate your social media tools with the rest of your business technology (where possible). Your social media tools and technology requires budget and integration.

2016 Social Media Marketing Plan Step 10:

Maximize your social media ROI.

With increased pressure to show ROI on your social media investment, you need a process.

From a business perspective, you need metrics that allow you to manage and grow your business. The 3 core ones are:

Email subscriptions. This helps build your list, a business asset. This audience is interested in your content and social media.

Sales you can attribute through ecommerce buttons and landing pages. Social media is rarely the first or last piece of marketing touched.

Actionable Marketing Guide publishes new posts from 2 to 5 times each week. You will receive a summary of each new post from “Heidi Cohen”. The email’s subject line will begin “Actionable Marketing Guide” followed by the title of the new post.

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